Our New Homeschool Room

I am often encouraged and inspired by pictures and ideas on homeschool organization and thought I’d share our latest homeschool rooms with you. In the past two years, we have lived in three different homes. As difficult as the moves have been, the first room to always get fixed up is our homeschool room. As long as we have that in order, the days go by much more smoothly.

We started off in a house we thought was too big, then downsized to one that ended up being too small after our third baby arrived. This post takes a peek in our homeschool room, which also served as our dining room. We have since found one that is “just right” and have been able to once again designate a bedroom for homeschooling and learning. Yay!
Welcome to our homeschool room.

It is our happy place where learning and fun happen every day.

Instead of learning corners as in Educating the Wholehearted Child, we have learning bins, filled with specific categories of toys for enrichment and play. A few of the bin categories include: alphabet blocks, musical toys, building blocks, Legos, Magformers, wooden dolls, play food and dishes, a train set, cars, airplanes, puzzles, games, and dress up costumes, hats, and props. Eventually, these will be replaced with books and more curricula, but for now, play is the work of childhood, and our kids love to play.

Specific learning activities are kept in our closet so that they can only be used during school time. This keeps the activities fresh for easier rotation throughout the week.

I also use the closet to store our math manipulatives, folder games, and curricula in large Drona boxes. They are perfect for keeping things tidy and in order.

In one corner of our homeschool room, we have our alphabet, along with a basket for all of my teacher’s manuals.

On that same wall, we also have a clipboard for our weekly  Bible verse along with a United States map.

In the next corner, behind the door, we have our calendar and learning poster of the month.

This wall also has our bulletin board, which currently has a place for us to put our weather cards and date.

We also post our weekly art piece that we are discussing along with the kids’ All About Reading progress charts.

The rest of the wall houses our map, atlas, and timeline along with our agenda charts and numbers at the top.

On the back wall, we have our All About Reading magnet board along with a ribbon for the children’s art work.

Books and the children’s school folders and materials are stored on the shelves of our Ikea Expedit book shelf, which has been wonderful for keeping it all neat in one place.

In order to keep markers and paints out of reach of our youngest family member, we have decided to give our dining room an added function as our craft and hobby room. I love using our custom farmhouse table for art and hands-on projects because of the space and easy clean up.

The buffet table on the back wall houses our CD player and art supplies, along with my own personal hobby materials, such as stamps, card-making kits, and ribbon for making bows.

I use baskets to store all of the craft materials the children can use for their projects.

I also have a bin full of fabric scraps and ribbon that they have really enjoyed using for their own personal projects and endeavors.

On the far-right wall, we have a hook for their aprons along with a bookshelf, which holds the rest of the materials and books.

On the top shelf, I keep canisters with extra glue, foam brushes, and other small items, along with my chalk, and homeschool resources. On the next shelf, I keep curricula in magazine files along with Do-a-Dot markers that I keep just out of reach for special projects.

Next, I have a vase and canister that holds our pencil colors and paint brushes, along with a basket that keeps my lesson plans, stickers, and handouts we are currently using. The next shelf has part of our small (and growing!) nonfiction book collection, colorful pens, chalk, and markers.

We keep the smaller nonfiction books in baskets, along with our mini chalkboard, and anatomy slides. On the bottom shelf, I have a file bin full of scrapbook and construction paper, foam sheets, stickers, and recycled paper for drawing and painting. I also put drawing pads, their art binders, and arts and crafts books on this shelf for easy reference.

To the right of the shelf is a wall file organizer where they put their drawings and paintings after they finish them. Once a month, we filter through these and discard many, hang some, and store a few in our memory boxes.

Overall, this space has worked out really well for us. In the future, we will probably move much of this to the main homeschool room when the toys have worked their way out of the kids’ lives; but for now, this is perfect. It allows us to change things up during the day as we work our way through the house.

This is our happy place, where we laugh, learn, and grow.

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